boundaries

Did you know two angels, Sandalphon and Metatron, lived as humans? Both of these fabulous workers of miracles eventually departed from Mother Earth and went to live with God in his Holy Kingdom. Apparently, Metatron left only some clothes behind, whereas Sandalphon was gathered up by a whirlwind. You can directly meet with them and tap into their amazing energies.

Archangel Sandalphon

In the angelic realm, Archangel Sandalphon is said to be the tallest angel and twin of Metatron. While on earth, Sandalphon lived as Elijah The Prophet. He was a virtuous and wondrous man who performed many miracles during his lifetime. Prophet Elijah lived in Northern Israel, during the reign of King Ahab in the 9th Century BC.

According to Kabbalah, Sandalphon’s divine presence can be found at the base of the Tree of Life. Interestingly, he is believed to appear in human form, in nature, to remind man of his planetary responsibilities. He is guardian of the material world, including the Earth and all the plants and animals that live upon it.

Another of his many roles is to convey our prayers to the Cosmos (often through song) by weaving our requests into many different colored garlands. How beautiful is that!

A good friend called me recently about experiences her daughter was having seeing spirits and shadow people in their house. They attempted to clear the energy by smudging the home with sage, but her daughter was still seeing these entities. My friend had remembered a story I told her about my early experiences with spirit realm and thought maybe I could help.

When I really began opening my connection to spirit I was in my 20s. Often, just as I was falling asleep, or was dozing, spirits would come and start ‘talking’ to me. In my experience, once one starts communicating, others will follow, as they seem to get excited about being able to connect directly with someone in the physical realm who can actually hear or see them. Needless to say, after not too long, I found this to be somewhat disruptive in my life.

One particular afternoon, as I was dozing off for a nap, a friendly spirit came to call and was telling me about her former life. But after a short time, another spirit arrived, who felt very negative and unpleasant. He seemed to be drawing on my energy and draining it. Although I did not sense him having any evil intention towards me, his negativity startled me. At this time I still had very little experience of consciously connecting to and communicating with spirit, and no real guidance from a teacher or mentor.

After a short time of his negative interference, and pushing deeper in to my energy, I said, “You need to stop right now and go away! And do not come back!” Well, he was gone in an instant and I had a nice peaceful nap for the first time in weeks.

The process of healing begins with psychological healing, which can then be carried forward to become transformational and contribute to your soul evolution. The original traumatic event or circumstances are experienced as a wound, as it should be. The pain of the occurrence is meant to be a lesson.

To shut this down by being stoic, or to minimize what happened to you, or your family, or your race, or to sugarcoat the experience with so called ‘positive thinking’ are the actions of a victim in denial. To feel the pain, to go through it and come out the other side is the journey of a warrior. This is where you start.

You set up this lesson before you ever incarnated. As a soul, working with your sacred group, and with guidance, you pre-determined these circumstances to create an amazing opportunity to forward your evolution as a soul. Accept what happened, which means don’t fight it, don’t deny it, go through the experience, feel it. Let it affect you, shape you, change you, challenge you.

Victim Stage

If you have a legal battle ahead of you for something such as rape, you will have to stay in victim (or victim survivor) mode as that is what the legal system demands. In fact, you will have to emphasize damage done to you in order to win your case. Even when one must call the police to come to a situation, law enforcement officers counsel people to say, for example, “I think I saw a gun.” This is done in order to get the police out in a timely manner and get it on record. Law enforcement is so overwhelmed that they have to prioritize which calls to respond to. Sadly the same is true for the courts. Emphasizing the danger you are in, or the harm you suffered, is a necessary strategy for legal battles, however, it is no way to continue living your life once the battle is done.

It is in the empath’s nature to say ‘yes’ to just about anything requested of them. It goes against our grain. For some of us, saying ‘no’ also brings on fears of rejection, abandonment or letting someone down when it may be important to support them. Rather than finding an excuse, or simply telling the truth, many of us give in and just go along. It just feels easier in the moment, and even validating or satisfying.

But when you end that phone call, or respond to another text, and you feel anxious and panicked, while you start going over all the other things that will have to fall to the wayside by saying yes, then you really are saying no to yourself. Self-care requires that we sometimes say no to others, in order to say yes to our own well-being and peace of mind. Consequently, the person that you said yes to won’t be getting the best of you. If you have said yes at your own expense, then what you bring to the table for that person is stress and anxiety. Your best self will not be fully present.

Saying yes, when you really want to say no, can also lead to resentment that you then attach to the person who asked for your assistance. Here the responsibility lies with ourselves. We teach people how to treat us and many times we don’t give others enough credit for understanding when we say no. Most people would rather hear. “No thanks, that time doesn’t work for me” or “I have other commitments,” instead of having to sense a half-hearted or less than enthusiastic yes.

One way to improve yourself, or change your life, is to gain understanding either through a teacher, a therapist, a nutritionist, a personal trainer, further study or research, and so on. One can then use your newly acquired understanding to implement change, which will also change your energy, because you implemented change you understood.

However, many people gain new understanding, but remain stuck in their inaction, their fear of taking action, of making different choices. Think about how many people you know who understand or ‘know’ how to eat healthily, how to exercise correctly, or to not jump into bed with just anyone. Then think about how many of those people put their understanding into actual action in their lives. You see my point?

Some also use understanding to get stuck. Everything has a double edge, light and dark, Yin and Yang. The art of living is a moving form of balance. Some people demand of themselves, others, even of Spirit, to be ‘given’ understanding, before they will take action (instead of working to gain that understanding for themselves). As if being ‘given understanding’ will somehow be a kind of protection, or guarantee of success.

When people ‘handle’ me, it makes my skin crawl, literally. Why do people feel the need to ‘handle’ others? What is the difference between say being diplomatic with someone, being professional, or having boundaries, all of which are healthy behaviors, compared to ‘handling’ someone? The simple answer is energy.

Handling someone means you are a closed book, you have an agenda with a person and you want to accomplish that agenda, whether it is to get something from the person or to make that person go away (without you simply setting a boundary or being honest).

People who ‘handle’ others often do not know that is what they are doing; it is their unconscious ‘go-to’ behavior, their norm. Some ways of discovering if you are handling versus relating to someone, is to look at your other choices.

You may not realize that addicts always need handling. So, if you are an addict (of any kind — drugs, alcohol, sugar, sex, anything you feel compelled to do in excess), or if you tend to date, marry or make friends with addicts of any sort, you are more than likely someone who ‘handles’ others, as well as yourself. A handler type person will choose addicts often without realizing or admitting to themselves that they are an addict, because addicts do in fact need to be ‘handled’ until they come out of denial and start to participate in their recovery.

Friends are a wonderful addition to our lives. In some cases they even take the place of family of origin, and become our chosen family. A healthy friendship is a balanced one – give and take, trust, loyalty, acceptance and truth delivered with compassion. Unfortunately, for the empath, friendship can also be treacherous territory, sometimes rife with debbie downers, energy thieves, and psychic vampires.

There are different levels of friendship, from casual social friendships to those we call ‘best friends.’ These best friends are ones with whom we feel safe sharing our deepest secrets, fears, hopes and dreams.

Social media has made it much easier in recent years to connect with friends. With a click of the keyboard a new friend can be made or an old acquaintance rekindled. Social media sites have even recognized the importance of providing the choice of putting people into the appropriate category, such as people from work or close friends. People can be also unfriended, blocked or reported if they are out of bounds, and what is seen publicly by our friends can be limited.